Monthly Archives: July 2010

As of August 15, we’ll be setting up shop at 37 Barker Road, Flat No. 4A, The Peak, Hong Kong.

The place is up on the Peak, but it’s on the lowest road, which they say is usually just below the cloud / fog line. It’s above the crazyness of the city, but it’s still only a nine minute cab ride down to the action.

And here we are on the fourth floor… you can see from the buildings below why a 6 story building was, oh so comforting, to this single story, ranch loving, California gal.

So we had to weigh a lot of things… it was all about tradeoffs: high-rise versus mid-rise, fresh air versus convenient location, beach (yes, there are white sand beaches on the South side of Hong Kong–about 30 minutes from Central where all the offices are), or deck (which was the Mr’s no. 1 priority), or new kitchen versus big kitchen, or view of harbor versus view of beach versus view of your neighbor combing her hair in her 40th floor apartment, but a mere five feet from you… so many iterations of options. But in the end we opted for :

(Also, the place is still being touched up / painted so excuse the mess.)

1. A sick view and an awesome little deck. We figure we’re only young once and we’ll never ever again get to have a view like this one.

The Mr. LOVES the deck which opens right out from the living room. I do, too… I’m thinking cook-outs, cocktails, cigar smoking…

We had to take a trip to Macau over the weekend to activate my HK visa and I was pretty taken by this Hermes window display in the Wynn Macau.

So I mistakenly didn’t include her shoes, but I will tell you that they weren’t red. Although that is a cute little red satchel.

I wonder if they had to go out and make this tin man?

This is actually a pretty good looking guys outfit, don’t you think? I love that the jacket lining is orange. And I really like that guy’s overnight bag. Very handsome.

I think the tornadoes were my favorite part!

So there are eight Hermes stores in Hong Kong, plus two in Macau (where the above shots were taken), compared to 28 in all of the states. But of course, Hong Kong is the size of 426 square miles, or 1/3 the size of Road Island or the size of the city of Houston or the island of Oahu.

In short, the density of the high-end shopping here is just insane. You can’t walk five feet in any direction without running into Gucci or Jimmy Choo’s or Cartier. Apparently, all the main landers come here to get their luxury goods fix. And, yes, they really do shop, not just look, judging by all of the bags I see being carried into our hotel.

So we’re going on a month in a hotel now… the first three weeks were in normal hotel rooms, but now we’re in corporate housing so we actually have a little kitchenette and a place to do laundry, other than the bathroom sink.

In our kitchen there is a crazy, tiny little washing machine and dryer in one. At first, I wondered why we don’t have these 2-in-1 machines in the States, but then I realized it’s because they don’t actually dry things. After many failed attempts, I concluded that you can really wash about one outfit at a time, meaning its capacity is literally one shirt, one pair of jeans, and socks.

If you put any more than that in there, or likely even if you put that few of things in there, the dryer really only works half way.

The Mr. really doesn’t appreciate this decorating. Also, notice what I like to call “laptop-gate” on top of the dish drying rack. Yep, that’s right we have, no exaggeration, five computing devices in this tiny little apt.

Also, check out our mini-dishwasher. Any idea what the point of a dishwasher you can’t put a full dinner plate in up-right is? Wouldn’t you rather just handwash it yourself and have the extra room, or an actual oven?

And here is what I thought was an oven.

Happy to finally have some homemade food, I ran out to the store to make Nick’s favorite dish: his mother’s mustard chicken. But, when I got home I realized that is actually a microwave disguised as an oven, so I ended up doing a sauteed variation as it would be hard to get bread crumbs to actually brown in a microwave. I also would feel guilty radiating the organic food that I had just paid a small fortune for. I seriously think eating out here is WAY cheaper than eating in… unless I guess you learn how to shop at the real markets, which I will work on in due time.

Here is our first homemade meal in Hong Kong. Steamed broccoli, caprese salad, and the beloved chicken.Quick recipe for you — what is so great about this is that it’s so simple and you can have all the ingredients in your pantry / freezer so you can whip it up in five minutes, on a moment’s notice.

I am not at all a fan of uncomfortable situations. In fact, the Mr. says I always say that absolutely everything is awkward, even when it’s not… so imagine how awkward I felt when we were about to get into our hotel elevator and an old guy with a giant potbelly dressed like a sleeze meets up with an Asian girl–who is probably about 30, but dressed like she is 14, with pigtail braids and pink ballet, big bow, flats–get on the elevator with us and start talking about their obviously compensated rendez vous. Inappropriate. And, sadly, I think very common in Asia in general. Dirty, old men–can’t help but hate ‘em.

So in ongoing preparation for this adventure, I’ve decided to read up on all things Asia. I felt woefully unprepared by both my education, as well as my personal reading for this trip because I’ve sadly read very little about this part of the world. I also miss my beloved book club back home in S.F. very much! So the first book I read was The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee, given to me so very kindly by my book club member Krissy on a list of recommended books about Hong Kong.

What I liked about it:

This is embarrassing to even admit, but I had NO clue what happened to Hong Kong during World War II. So as it turns out the British colony was occupied by the Japanese after 18 days of intense fighting by woefully under-manned British and Canadian troops. The Japanese then interned all of the expatriates for three years and 8 months. The best part of the book was feeling transported to Hong Kong during the forties and fifties–it switches back and forth, from past to present.

It’s always very interesting to read about who people become when their survival is threatened… some rise to the occasion and others are only capable of looking out for their own skin. You can’t help but wonder who you would become if war ever arrived on your doorstep.

I also, initially and only initially, related to the protagonist Claire Pendleton who has moved to Hong Kong from Britain for her husband’s job. Her initial impressions of the city were very similar to mine. Her descriptions of the Peak, the humidity, the markets, the intensity of street life… they all seem true decades later.

Claire is a piano teacher for a wealthy Chinese family that lives on May Road. I took that to be a major sign as the apartment we were looking at was also on May Road. I’m a big believer in signs, but in the end I don’t think that apartment was meant for us! It’s very crazy to think that in the fifties there was a large multi-story home and compound there. Now there are half a dozen sixty-story apartment high rises.

Being a romantic sap that gravitates towards the melancholy and depressing (the Mr. always comments on how all the music and movies I like are sad), I really appreciated how realistic the love stories were.

I noticed this memorial when walking through the HK Botanical Gardens the other day.

What I didn’t like about it:

Although there are pieces of great writing, at the end of the day I feel like this is more of a beach read / page turner than a great novel, which depending on what you’re looking for could be a good thing.

I think the characters were a little two-dimensional and although the book started off remarkably strong it seemed to peter off mid-way and ended unremarkably / predictably.

In short: 3.5 stars. It’s The Awakening meets The Painted Veil, both of which I really liked. Recommended for ladies looking to curl up on a rainy day with a romance that actually teaches you something about both world history and real-life relationships.

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